10/10/11

This new addition to Nomad Press' Build It Yourself series is one of the best I've read (both in terms of books in the series, and books for kids about the Industrial Revolution!). It introduces not just the cool inventions (like the cotton gin and the spinning jenny), but it explains clearly why they were embraced, and what the social and economic repercussions (both good and bad) were.

The technology buff will be fascinated by that side of things, the young reader drawn more to stories of people will be fascinated not just by meeting the inventors themselves, but by stories of how the lives of working people were changed. My own son liked best the accounts of the worker protests, and strikes violently disbanded.

This series always offers engaging activities to complement the history, but in this case they are especially good ones, I thought. Building your own canal lock, for instance, and weaving with your own hand loom....

As is also a trademark of this series, rather simple black and white drawings are included. The only actual vintage illustrations are those on the cover. So this book, I think, would work best side by side with original source material to bring it to life.